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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Abuse response [Was: RE: Yahoo Mail Update]
On Wednesday 16 April 2008 17:47, Dave Pooser wrote: > > > It can be useful to explain the abuse desk as being just another form > > of marketing, another form of reputation management that happens to be > > specific to Internet companies. > > Is it? .. SNIP good points about abuse desks .. In the specific case that started this (Yahoo), then I think there is a marketing issue. Ask anyone in the business "if I want a free email account who do I use.." and you'll get the almost universal answer Gmail. Mostly this is because Hotmail delete email randomly, Yahoo struggle with the volumes, and everyone forgets AOL do free accounts (although it is painfully slow and the documentation is incomplete). But it is in part that Google do actually answer enquiries still, be they abuse or support. Yahoo occassionally manage an answer, usually not to the question you asked, or asking for information already supplied. AOL - well you can get an answer from their employee who watches Spam-L, but directly not a chance. So it is a competitive market, and the opinion of those in the know matters (a little -- we could make more noise!). Although the tough one to compete with is Hotmail, since their computer offers it to them every time they reinstall, and those reinstalling more often have least clue, but eventually realise having their email on THEIR(!) PC is a bad idea. But yes, abuse desk is only a minor issue in that market, but if you don't deal with abuse, it will cost the bottom line for email providers. I think for people mostly providing bandwidth, email is still largely irrelevant, even at the hugely inflated levels the spammers cause it is still a minor %age, favicons (missing or otherwise) probably cause nearly as much traffic.
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